Some short sketches among the Gnostics, mainly of the first two centuries-a contribution to the study of Christian Origins based on the most recently discovered materials. 'I have written so that the man of one language only may read from the first to the last page, without being forced to regret his ignorance of other tongues; for I believe that the subject is of profoundly human interest, and not one of merely academical importance...my main object has been to hand on what the earliest Christian philosophers and teachers wrote and thought. They seem to me to have written many beautiful things, and I, for my part, have learned through them to sense the work of the Great Master in a totally new light." Contents: Prolegomena; Some Rough Outlines of the Background of the Gnosis; General And Gnostic Christianity; The Gnosis According to Its Foes; Some Gnostic Fragments Recovered from the Polemical Writings of the Church Fathers; Some Traces of the Gnosis in the Uncanonical Acts; The Gnosis According to Its Friends; Bibliographies.